Source: Cantaloupe Systems | Released July 30, 2013SAN FRANCISCO (July 30, 2013) -- Cantaloupe Systems today announced an update to its Seed Platform, adding new capabilities to its easy-to-use, cloud-based vending management and cashless solution. This release makes it easier to get started with Seed Office (Cantaloupe's Web-based VMS) and to control product shrinkage, and it adds 14 different customer-requested improvements throughout Seed Platform.

This is Cantaloupes sixth major upgrade in the past 12 months. "As a modern, Web-based platform, we can respond quickly without requiring software upgrades or other IT hassles. This release is no exception, combining ease-of-use improvements in Seed Office setup and product accountability with a long list of customer-requested improvements product-wide," said Justin Grant, Director of Product of Cantaloupe Systems. "This latest upgrade makes Seed even easier to use for all our customers, and stay tuned for even more progress coming later this year."

As usual, this new release will automatically be available for all Seed customers without them having to pay an upgrade fee or bother an IT department. Full details of this release will be available online in the home page that Seed users see after login. Key updates include:

Easier On-Ramp to Seed Office

Operators who want to move to Seed Office now can avoid costly and error prone manual data entry by importing customer and product information in bulk using Excel. In addition, setup and editing of customers and locations is now much faster.

» Easier customer and location setup -- adding, removing, and viewing customers and locations is now much easier. This means faster initial setup and less work when an operator gets new business.

» Better bulk import/export of product catalog -- operators can now import/export product catalogs using excel, including bar codes, case counts, and other data needed for Seed Office. This makes it easy to edit product catalogs offline or import them from a distributor or another VMS.

Easier Product Accountability

Seed Office now further reduces the time and complexity required to identify the sources of product shrinkage with the following new features:

» Driver check-in with automated warehouse product return -- streamlines workflow when drivers return to the warehouse at the end of their day, while ensuring more accurate product accountability with less work for drivers and route managers.

» New warehouse product accountability page -- makes it easy to identify warehouse shrinkage patterns by product, spot shrinkage trends across multiple inventory periods, and diagnose the likely cause of shrink so action can be taken in real time to avoid costly product losses.

14 Customer-Requested Usability Improvements

This release rolls up many small improvements to make Seed easier to use. These include:

» Easier service ticket entry & editing -- smoother workflow when creating and categorizing service tickets, which optimizes dispatching of service techs.

San Francisco-based Cantaloupe Systems Inc. is the fastest-growing cloud-based wireless vending optimization platform provider. The company was founded in 2002 by engineers Mandeep Arora, a second-generation vending professional, and Anant Agrawal to provide automated merchandising and business intelligence technology to the $55 billion global vending industry. Cantaloupe Systems applies state-of-the-art business intelligence and analytics to monitor real-time vending sales data remotely, and then suggests optimized next-best-step business decisions. The result: vending operators can generate the greatest revenue and margin from each machine with optimized service efficiencies and reduced operational cost. Operators using Cantaloupe Systems vending optimization technology average $35,000 in annual savings per route, can replenish 80 percent more machines per week and can reduce their carbon footprint by 40 percent through the elimination of unnecessary truck travel and smaller loads per truck.

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